South Africa ended 2025 with its highest-ever annual tourist arrivals but more work needs to be done to recover arrivals from key overseas markets, which are still 8.5% behind pre-COVID 2019 levels.
Total arrivals for the year stood at 10.498 million, exceeding 2018’s previous record high of 10.472 million, according to Statistics South Africa’s latest International Tourism Report.
However, overseas arrivals – despite recording a solid year-on-year growth of 12% from 2024 – are at 91.5% of 2019.
“It is great news that we have breached the record figure for highest-ever arrivals but the recovery of overseas arrivals remains well behind where we should be,” said Lee-Anne Bac, Advisory Partner: Tourism at BDO South Africa.
She said, according to average traveller spend figures from SA Tourism, the net economic loss from the missing chunk of overseas travellers totalled R5 billion (US$314.3 million).
The SADC region dominated arrivals with a 74% share of all international arrivals.
Source market regions that exceeded 2019 figures include North America, Australasia and the Middle East with recovery rates of 104%, 113% and 108% respectively.
Europe, the largest overseas source market region, enjoyed an accelerated growth rate of 12.9% from 2024 but remained at 91.5% of 2019.
Bac pointed out that the prevailing geopolitical environment led to the UK again overtaking the US as South Africa’s top overseas source market this year.
“The rand has strengthened significantly against the dollar, and the UK’s stabler geopolitical environment and stronger traveller confidence in South Africa is resulting in a welcome rebound in arrivals,” she said.
Despite strong year-on-year growth of 26% in 2025, the Central and South American market was at 79% recovery while Asian arrivals – which only grew by 4% year-on-year – were at 69% recovery.
Speaking at a media briefing in Pretoria on Tuesday, January 27, Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille attributed the recovery in total arrivals to “deliberate policy choices, focused implementation and strong collaboration between government and the private sector”.
De Lille said: “These policies include government’s growth and inclusion strategy gains, which have also identified tourism as one of the five key sectors in our country that can unlock economic growth. So we have momentum and, importantly, we have a bold and implementable plan to build on,” said De Lille, referring to the Tourism Growth Partnership Plan approved by Cabinet last year.
De Lille said the five priorities of the plan – ease of access, destination marketing, tourist safety and security, tourism product development and job creation – will be supported by a dashboard tracking progress against targets in real time.
